Ultrafiltration (UF) is a filtration process utilized for treating water and other liquids in order to remove colloids, micron- and submicron-sized particles (e.g., >about 20-50 nanometers) and biological entities (e.g., bacteria) from water which can be used for multitude of purposes that include, for example, drinking water and industrial water (e.g., cooling tower water, water used in microelectronics manufacturing, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and so forth). Ultrafiltration is also being increasingly used to provide a pre-treated source water to be fed to reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems for water treatment and desalination. In the latter application, the ultrafiltration process protects the downstream process of reverse osmosis from fouling by fine particulates, colloids and bacteria, as well as other contaminants that complex with coagulants that can be used to enhance the efficiency of UF filtration.
It is against this background that a need arose to develop the embodiments described herein.